Mark Cuban Has a Two-Year Plan to Turn the Mavs Into Championship Contenders

The Mavs certainly don’t look like NBA Championship contenders at the moment—the group of guys that won them the ‘chip in 2011 has been entirely disassembled, and the current roster couldn’t even propel them into the Playoffs this past season—but owner Mark Cuban has a plan, one he claims could bring the franchise back to the top within two years. Via ESPNDallas: “Mark Cuban’s goal is to make the Dallas Mavericks a championship team again within a two-year window. After Dallas missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, the owner vowed the Mavs would have a ‘quick rebuild.’ The pending pitch to free agents this summer — including Chris Paul and Dwight Howard — is that the franchise can take a significant step forward next season and then have the salary-cap space available again in 2014 to make more major upgrades. ‘We want to be a championship team. We’ve never said we have to be a championship team this year,’ Cuban said Saturday on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM during his first interview since the Mavs’ season ended. ‘We want to be a better team, a top-seed team. If we get the top free agent, that doesn’t leave us a whole lot of flexibility to add a lot of players, but we have a good nucleus around them. We know we’ll have a good team, but we won’t know if we have a great team. If you look at this like a two-year plan, then we think we’re on a track to have a great team by the end of next year.’ … NBA tampering rules prevent Cuban from discussing specific free agents, but it’s no secret that Plan A and B are Howard and Paul, not necessarily in that order.”